As a political scientist, Derek Cook finds his classes influenced by current events.
Most recently, his attention was drawn to the story of Collin Gordon, a former business student at Thompson Rivers University who is now reported to be fighting with the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) terrorist group in Syria.
One of the questions Cook hopes generates discussion at a forum he is organizing this week is what a university can do “to inoculate our students against such nonsense, such extremism.”
Cook said the subject is a natural one for him to address as he teaches a class on Middle-Eastern politics and is head of the university’s faculty associations human-rights committee.
He is conducting today’s (Sept. 4) forum under the auspices of his department in room 262 of the campus’s Arts and Education Building.
Cook pointed out this is not the first time Kamloops has hit the international media landscape because of terrorism.
He pointed to the 1985 bombing of an Air India flight, which led to the arrest of Kamloops resident Ajaib Singh Bagri, who was later found not guilty.
Cook hopes to show those at the forum that fundamentalism in religion “doesn’t have to mean extremism.”
But, he added, it’s also important to take a look at what led Gordon to convert to Islam and join the Syrian jihadist organization.
The forum is open to the public and starts at 4 p.m.
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